Sometimes it's an item in a newspaper
that catches your life on a nail in the porch floor
you should've fixed by now. Later, late at night,
with the window open, it gets so quiet in Idaho
you can visualize the sonic burps
carrying from the interstate as ants
scouting the fringe of a picnic,
already loaded with loot from distant feasts.
Even to someone as woozy as you, this is unsettling.
It says the new Swedish nose spray for male
birth control has some kinks, some Side Effects.
It gets so quiet inside, you can only imagine.
It says troubles are rocking the P.O. again . . .
Someone is filching--lots of someones are filching--
the crisp sheets of 69-cent stamps with the portrait of
Satan playing the trumpet in his prime.
It says you're not as young as you used to be.
It says some boys bring some guns to school.
None of this will be too surprising, it's just
where the mind goes given no uncertain terms,
so you might as well get up and close the window,
so you do. Times were when homes were
built to last. Now it gets so quiet you can hear
the undersound, that drone and whistle in your ears
which could be the lament of surviving cells
or, conceivably, the Sirens of Life,
seducing you like coffee in the kitchen
to a day in your body
and its plights of restoration.